In a previous post, I explained how to disable the Windows 7 firewall and leave it to Microsoft to change how an operation is performed.

Like the previous post, there are times when I don't want the firewall in the way of troubleshooting a problem.  The following is how to disable it.

From a Command Prompt run as the administrator, enter the following:

Have you ever looked in Active Directory Users and Computers and wondered whether or not the list of computers is a list of every computer that has ever existed since the beginning of time?  Me neither.  ;)

The following command will return a list of computers that have been inactive for X weeks.  In the example below, I'm looking for computers that have been inactive for more than 4 weeks.

Lots of applications for this simple command.  Yesterday, I was troubleshooting a SQL connection issue and even though I had enabled TCP/IP in protocols, I was still unable to make a connection.  As a sanity check, I ran a shortened version of the command below which showed me that 1433 was not open and ultimately brought me to the source of the problem. 

Launch a Command Prompt as the administrator (right click, CMD, select Run As Administrator).

Enter the following command: